From 'Unemployed Lee Sedol' to 'Dead-End Job,' labor becomes content

As concerns grow that artificial intelligence (AI) could replace humans in the workplace, the broadcasting industry is turning its attention to labor. A growing number of programs are exploring the subject, ranging from dramas set in workplaces and variety shows examining the realities of office workers to observational programs that put life without work front and center.

Released on Netflix on Friday, the series “Dead-End Job” is a horror comedy about a young man named Hyuk-jun, who is sent into nightmarish workplaces after signing up with a bizarre employment agency that offers nothing but seemingly lucrative part-time jobs, starting at 50 times the standard hourly wage. Combining the familiar reality of part-time work with surreal mysteries and horror elements, the series offers an unconventional genre experience.

Meanwhile, SBS’ documentary program “Rewriting the Formula for Success – Young Creators Are Heading to Work” explores young people who have chosen careers in technology amid the expansion of AI and the semiconductor boom, examining the role of education and career choices in an era of rapid change. KBS2’s ongoing reality show “Unemployed Lee Sedol” follows the former Go champion as he takes on jobs that AI cannot perform, including cutting plywood and cleaning windows on the exterior of high-rise buildings.

In the past, television programs generally presented labor through occupational experience shows or as part of a journey toward success. Recently, however, the focus has broadened to include the everyday lives and hardships of workers, as well as the very meaning of labor itself. In particular, as advances in AI rapidly transform the nature of work and the role of humans, the broadcasting industry's perspective on labor also appears to be shifting.

What is interesting is the variety of ways these programs approach the subject. Some plunge into workplaces to experience the realities of labor firsthand, others observe the daily lives of office workers, while still others question the meaning of work by exploring life without it.

“Dead-End Job,” for example, revolves around a suspicious employment agency offering high-paying part-time jobs. Hyuk-jun (Lee Jae-wook), a young man desperate to pay off his debts, ventures into dangerous workplaces in an attempt to escape poverty, which he finds more frightening than ghosts.

The series does not portray labor merely as a means of making a living. Instead, it uses genre storytelling to explore the anxieties and contradictions inherent in the workplace, including systems that lure workers with promises of high wages and situations in which people must put themselves at risk to earn money. In doing so, it offers a distorted reflection of the harsh realities of labor. In effect, the series expands the desperation of young job seekers and the dangers they must endure to make money into the realm of horror.

SBS' “Rewriting the Formula for Success – Young Creators Are Heading to Work” offers another perspective on labor while questioning the conventional success formula centered on academic credentials. By presenting stories of young people who attended vocational high schools before landing jobs at Silicon Valley companies alongside the career concerns of ninth-grade students, the program reflects a changing era in which technical expertise and practical skills are emerging as new competitive advantages.

The production team said it focused not simply on job experience but on “work that AI cannot replace.” At a press conference, producer Lee Myeong-seop explained that the team was more interested in identifying the kinds of work AI cannot replace than in highlighting specific occupations. Lee Sedol, meanwhile, cited empathy and the ability to build relationships as things only humans can do in an era of rapidly advancing AI.

The rapid development of AI lies behind the broadcasting industry's renewed interest in labor. Accordingly, the questions raised by television content are also changing. They go beyond simply asking which jobs have the best prospects or how people can achieve success.

“Dead-End Job” explores the desperation of working to make ends meet through genre storytelling, while the SBS documentary program encourages viewers to reconsider conventional standards of careers and success. “Unemployed Lee Sedol,” meanwhile, seeks the meaning of labor in the process of people physically engaging with the world and building relationships with others.

The expansion of labor as a subject across different genres is certainly worth noting. Labor is now reaching viewers through a variety of formats, including horror, reality entertainment and educational programming about career choices. Once treated primarily as a weighty and often dry social issue, labor is increasingly being used as material for content that also offers mainstream entertainment value.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.